PopularCoin (POP) is a decentralised open-source cryptocurrency forked from Litecoin in January 2014. It started as a proof-of-work cryptocurrency with a total supply of 4.9 billion coins and no premine, but the coin will eventually become a hybrid proof-of-work/proof-of-stake cryptocurrency, with the proof-of-stake part being called "proof of participation". This feature gives users an extra incentive to run the PopularCoin client as it generates free coins by allowing the participant to cast a vote on supplied polls for popular media in the entertainment sector. Original announcement.

DistroWatch.com - BitKey

BitKey is a FREE, Debian-based live Linux distribution designed for Bitcoin users; it comes with specialist utilities to perform highly secure air-gapped Bitcoin transactions. It contains a swiss army knife of handy Bitcoin tools that support a wide range of usage models, including a few very secure ones which would otherwise be difficult to perform. The system boots into one of the three available modes: "cold-offline" - for creating a wallet and signing transactions; "cold-online" - for watching the wallet and preparing transactions; "hot-online" - standard usage but less secure as the private keys are known to the computer which is connected to the internet.

The Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus mechanism was developed as a response to (what many viewed as) a major deficiency of Bitcoin and its Proof-of-Work (PoW) mechanism - the environmental damage caused by the mining of bitcoins. In contrast to Bitcoin's PoW, PoS does not require miners to do any energy-intensive computations to process transactions. The PoS system relies on existing holders of the currency to secure the blockchain by keeping their wallets open for the staking process to take place. As such, PoS cryptocurrencies are much more energy-efficient and provide faster transaction confirmations. However, the PoS mechanism is not perfect either; according to some critics, the protocol's design (which rewards "stakers" with interest payments) encourages coin hoarding, while security has also been questioned, especially in cryptocurrencies with a limited number of users and stakers.

Darko Mijić has announced the release of Daedalus 0.13.0 wallet client with Cardano Settlement Layer 3.0.0, the two components that collectively form Cardano (ADA) 1.5.0. Cardano is an open-source project creating a decentralised platform which includes a cryptographic currency unit called ADA (equaling one million Lovelaces) and which allows complex, programmable transfers of value. This is the project's final release of the Byron development phase: "Cardano 1.5 is important in preparation for moving to the Shelley development phase. This update brings a new consensus protocol, Ouroboros BFT, which is a key step in the transition from Ouroboros Classic, the current consensus protocol running the Cardano network, to Ouroboros Genesis, the protocol for the Shelley era. Ouroboros Genesis is a major upgrade to the protocol that underpins Cardano because it is first proof-of-stake protocol that matches the security guarantees of proof-of-work protocols such as Bitcoin." See the release announcement as well as the release notes of Cardano-SL and Daedalus for further information. Download (SHA256): daedalus-0.13.0-cardano-sl-3.0.0-mainnet-x86_64-linux-4954.bin (238MB, signature), daedalus-0.13.0-cardano-sl-3.0.0-mainnet-macos-4954.pkg (177MB, signature), daedalus-0.13.0-cardano-sl-3.0.0-mainnet-windows-12640.exe (222MB, signature). The source codes for both Cardano SL 3.0.0 and Daedalus 0.13.0 are available from GitHub: 3.0.0.tar.gz (6.72MB), 0.13.0.tar.gz (104MB).

Burstcoin (BURST) developer "harry1453" has released a new version of Burst Reference Software, an application that powers the project's network and cryptocurrency, originally launched in August 2014 as a fork of Nxt. Version 2.3.0 fixes a major security issue: "Burst Reference Software 2.3.0 - first official release from the Burst App Team (BAT). Changes: fix of major security vulnerability where passphrase was sent to node upon login; gRPC-based v2 API, currently only contains calls needed for mining, will be expanded in future if well received; migrate to GSON as JSON library; significantly improve sync speed; minor performance improvements; new Semver-based versioning system; fix bug where reward recipient assignments would not go into unconfirmed transactions; lightweight desktop GUI with tray icon (on Windows and Mac OS it can be disabled with '–headless command-line argument); automatically add conf/ directory to classpath; configurable TestNet UI/API port; new getAccountsWithName API call; UI - fix 24h timestamp display option...." Read the rest of the release announcement for a full changelog. The Burst Reference Client is a small, cross-platform (Linux, macOS and Windows) command-line application with the graphical user interface accessible via the "localhost:8125" address in any Java-enabled web browser. Download link: burstcoin-2.3.0.zip (36.0MB). The source code is also ready: 2.3.0.tar.gz (2.51MB).

Karol Tomala has announced the release of Brass Golem 0.19.0, the latest stable version of the software powering the project's open-source and decentralised supercomputer and its sharing economy of computing power. Its token, Golem (GNT), is used to reward participating clients. Brass Golem 0.19.0 delivers a new "marketplace", among other new features: "We're excited and ready to introduce our newest production rollout - Brass Golem beta 0.19.0. In this new release, we're bringing two main features: the new providers' marketplace and the long-awaited migration to 'Docker for Windows' as a replacement for the previous 'Docker Toolbox' for Windows users. A short explanation on the new marketplace: in our previous versions, the prices were basically set by the requestors. Providers were only able to set the lowest amount per task they would be willing to work for and then the requestors would just accept any and all offers that made it to them first. With the new marketplace, the accent has been shifted to the providers who are given the option to compete with others with both their prices and reputation." See the release announcement and release notes for more details. Download: golem-0.19.0-linux.tar.gz (173MB), golem-0.19.0-macOS.tar.gz (166MB), golem-0.19.0-windows.exe (465MB). Here is the link to the source code: 0.19.0.tar.gz (51.1MB).

Stellar Core developer "MonsieurNicolas" has published an updated build of Stellar Core, the software client behind Stellar's payment network and cryptocurrency known as Stellar Lumen (XLM): "Stellar Core 10.2.0. This release addresses stability issues. Stability improvements: we now distinguish peers that we've never heard of from peers that we have been able to connect to - this should increase the overall quality of peers that are being used by the network; SCP - there was a minor issue in the SCP code (nomination protocol) that could cause excessive timeouts in some cases; archive nodes would sometimes fail to publish, causing retries and delays in publishing new snapshots; fix issue where the COMMANDS config was not working properly on startup; improved performance when processing failed trades in order book; fix crash when starting two stellar-core processes sharing the same buckets folder; improved performance and reliability when downloading files during catchup; performance - avoid creating too many files in the same folder during catchup, avoid forwarding too many messages when peers connect to each other; updated to latest asio release...." The source code of Stellar Core 10.2.0 can be downloaded from GitHub: v10.2.0.tar.gz (4.02MB). For binary clients please see the project's wallets page which provides download links to a number of third-party wallets.

Michael Ellery has announced the release of rippled 1.2.0, the latest stable version of Ripple's decentralised cryptographic ledger powered by a network of peer-to-peer servers and employing a decentralized native token commonly referred to as Ripple or XRP: "The rippled 1.2.0 release introduces the MultisignReserve amendment, which reduces the reserve requirement associated with signer lists. This release also includes incremental improvements to the code that handles offers. Furthermore, rippled now also has the ability to automatically detect transaction censorship attempts and issue warnings of increasing severity for transactions that should have been included in a closed ledger after several rounds of consensus. New and updated features: reduce the account reserve for a Multisign SignerList; improve transaction error condition handling; allow servers to automatically detect transaction censorship attempts; load validator list from file; add RPC command shard crawl; add RPC Call unit tests; grow the open ledger expected transactions quickly; avoid dispatching multiple fetch pack threads...." See the release announcement and release notes for further information. As usual, Ripple does provide any binary wallet software for download, but the source code of the latest release is available from GitHub: 1.2.0.tar.gz (7.22MB).

Maciej Baj has released Lisk (LSK) 1.4.0, the latest stable build of the project's decentralised application platform and cryptocurrency written in Node.js. Some of the bug-fix items from the long changelog include: "Fix misuse of sort method while updating delegates list cache; endpoint /api/delegates/forgers fail with offset > 100; configuration of https timeouts being set in wrong place; update Node.js GPG keyring; do not call callback multiple times when Redis is disconnected; remove unused Jenkinsfiles; overhaul Jenkinsfile.network; use lisk-scripts version 0.6.1; add unit tests for updateDelegateListCache and clearLastDelegateListCache methods; getLastCommit fails if git is not installed; API /node/constants build has a invalid timestamp value and format; set build constants in Dockerfile; update build/config.sh to pull in lisk-scripts 0.6.0; don't use '=' prefix in package.json to freeze dependencies; update Node.js version from 8.12.0 to 8.13.0...." Read the rest of the release notes for a full list of closed issues and merged pull requests. Download the source code of Lisk Core 1.4.0 from the project's download server (the compressed image includes instruction for compiling on Linux and macOS): lisk-1.4.0-Linux-x86_64.tar.gz (126MB, SHA256, signature).

James Lovejoy has announced the release of Vertcoin (VTC) Core 0.14.0, a major update of the project's proof-of-work (Lyra2) cryptocurrency with a continuous effort to hedge against mining centralisation by means of specialist hardware. Version 0.14.0 is a hard fork incorporating a new hashing algorithm and is therefore a mandatory upgrade: "Vertcoin 0.14.0 - Lyra2REv3 main network hard fork. This release contains the proposed upcoming Vertcoin main network hard fork to the new Lyra2REv3 mining algorithm at block 1,080,000 in order to rid the network of the current generation of Lyra2REv2 ASICs and FPGAs. It also contains the hard fork for the test network which already occurred at block 158,221. The difficulty will be forced down to 0x1b0ffff0 for 10 blocks after the fork before the usual KGW difficulty adjustment algorithm kicks in again to prevent the network from stalling due to the large expected decrease in network hashrate post-fork. While we cannot force you to upgrade and support the hard fork, we believe it's in the community's best interest to do so and the developers will not be supporting the old chain. If you do not upgrade, you risk loss of funds by transacting on the old and unsupported chain. Thus this should be treated as a mandatory upgrade." Here are the brief release notes. Download links: vertcoin-qt-v0.14.0-linux-amd64.zip (13.5MB, signature), vertcoin-qt-v0.14.0-macos.dmg (32.2MB, signature), vertcoin-qt-v0.14.0-win64.zip (13.0MB, signature). The source code also available: 0.14.0.tar.gz (5.32MB).

Counterparty developer "chiguireitor" has announced the release of counterparty-lib 9.56.0, the software library behind the Counterparty (XCP) financial platform and cryptocurrency built on top of the Bitcoin blockchain. As this new release introduces SegWit support and a hardfork at block 557,236 (7 January), it is a mandatory upgrade for all users who run the full XCP node: "Counterparty-lib 9.56.0 released. This release includes SegWit support on testnet (effective immediately) and on mainnet (effective from an activation block). This release also includes an update to use the latest version of Bitcoin Core 0.16.3, replaces the addrindex patch dependency with indexd, and includes additional changes and improvements listed in CIP19. Update should be done with at least a week in advance of the hard fork (activation of SegWit is around Jan 7th 2019) as indexd-server takes 2 - 4 days to sync initially and build all the indexing data (some community members will be providing torrents for downloading the initial synced database to speed up this process). All nodes should update before Block 557,236 on mainnet. Segwit is activated on testnet since block 1,440,200 so a rollback to that block is suggested after update." See the release announcement for more details. The source code of the counterparty-lib software library is available from the project's GitHub page: v9.56.0.tar.gz (945kB).